We received a UK shipment yesterday. Hurry and place your order if you would like one of these signed, firsts. Quantities are limited. Just call The Poisoned Pen Bookstore at 480 947 2974 0r 888 560 9919
Billingham, Mark.
Bloodline. ($41) Signed
When a dead body is found in a North London flat, it seems like a straightforward domestic murder until a bloodstained sliver of X-ray is found clutched in the dead woman's fist - and it quickly becomes clear that this case is anything but ordinary. DI Thorne discovers that
the victim's mother had herself been murdered fifteen years before by infamous serial killer Raymond Garvey. The hunt to catch Garvey was one of the biggest in the history of the Met, and ended with seven women dead. When more bodies and more fragments of X-ray are discovered, Thorne has a macabre jigsaw to piece together until the horrifying picture finally emerges. A killer is targeting the children of Raymond Garvey's victims. Thorne must move quickly to protect those still on the murderer's list, but nothing and nobody are what they seem. Not when Thorne is dealing with one of the most twisted killers he has ever hunted...
Black, Tony.
Gutted ($41)
When the gangland owner of a pit bull that killed a three-year-old girl is found gutted o
n an Edinburgh hill Gus Dury is asked to investigate, and soon finds himself up to his neck in the warring underworld of the city's sink estates. Amidst illegal dog fights, a missing fifty grand and a police force and judiciary desperate to cover their links to a brutal killing, Gus must work fast to root out the truth, whilst the case sinks its teeth ever deeper into him.
Chevalier, Tracy.
Remarkable Creatures ($37)
In the year of the 150th anniversary of Origin of Species, set in a town where Jane Austen was a frequent visitor, Tracy Chevalier once again shows her uncanny sense for the topical. In the early nineteenth century, a windswept beach along the English coast brims with fossils
for those with the eye! From the moment she's struck by lightning as a baby, it is clear Mary Anning is marked for greatness. When she uncovers unknown dinosaur fossils in the cliffs near her home, she sets the scientific world alight, challenging ideas about the world's creation and stimulating debate over our origins. In an arena dominated by men, however, Mary is soon reduced to a serving role, facing prejudice from the academic community, vicious gossip from neighbours, and the heartbreak of forbidden love. Even nature is a threat, throwing bitter cold, storms, and landslips at her. Luckily Mary finds an unlikely champion in prickly, intelligent Elizabeth Philpot, a middle-class spinster who is also fossil-obsessed. Their relationship strikes a delicate balance between fierce loyalty and barely suppressed envy. Despite their differences in age and background, Mary and Elizabeth discover that, in struggling for recognition, friendship is their strongest weapon. Remarkable Creatures is Tracy Chevalier's stunning new novel of how one woman's gift transcends class and gender to lead to some of the most important discoveries of the nineteenth century. Above all, it is a revealing portrait of the intricate and resilient nature of female friendship.
Jackson, Douglas.
Claudius ($32)
The year is 43AD ...In Southern England, Caratacus, war chief of the Britons, watches fro
m a hilltop as the scarlet cloaks of the Roman legions spread across his lands like blood. In Rome, Emperor Claudius, newly risen to the imperial throne, dreams of taking his place in history alongside his illustrious forebears Caesar and Augustus. Among the legions marches Rufus, keeper of the Emperor's elephant. War is coming and the united tribes of Britain will make a desperate stand against the might of Rome. The Emperor has a very special place for Rufus and his elephant in the midst of the battle - as a secret weapon to cow the Britons with the visible manifestation of Rome's power. "Claudius" is a masterful telling of one of the greatest stories from Roman history, the conquest of Britain. It is an epic story of ambition, courage, conspiracy, battle and bloodshed, and confirms Douglas Jackson as one of the best historical novelists writing today.
Mills, Jenni.
The Buried Circle ($31)
A pacy literary thriller, 'The Buried Circle' is a gripping blend of fact and fiction, people
d with extraordinary characters. The village of Avebury is one of the most mysterious places in the English countryside. Surrounded by ancient standing stones, crop circles and burial mounds, this is a place where all is not as it seems. In 1938, the archaeologist Alexander Keiller -- a millionaire playboy with a passion for ritual magic -- plans to reconstruct the 5000-year-old stone circle at Avebury. As war looms, Frannie Robinson and her boyfriend Davey are among those who fall under his spell, with fatal results. Seventy years later, Frannie's granddaughter India, filming in the area, survives a helicopter crash. Devastated, she decides to move back to Avebury and her grandmother, setting out on a quest to discover the truth about her family. But why is her grandmother so reluctant to talk about Keiller and the war? And exactly whose past is India unearthing!?
Mina, Denise.
Still Midnight ($31)
Life ought to be simple for DI Alex Morrow. She's an up-and-coming Glasgow cop, just about to be presented with the case that could make her career. Her half-brother Danny is also on the up. Unfortunately for her, he's making his name on the other side of the tracks - in the murky shadows of Glasgow's criminal underworld. Nearby, a peaceful Sunday evening in a suburban neighbourhood is brutally shattered by a vicious attack. A battered van pulls up to the door of an ordinary-looking home and disgorges a group of armed men in balaclavas. They smash
into the house, hold the terrified family within at gunpoint and demand millions of pounds. Baffled, the family protest that they don't have that sort of money. As quickly as they came, the attackers snatch the elderly grandfather and storm off into the night. When DI Morrow arrives she soon realises that there are too many missing links in this seemingly random attack: nothing quite makes sense. Who were the men? And why did they think this normal household concealed untold riches? The family is certainly not talking and as Morrow starts to delve deeper, she realises that there are dark secrets all around... As she searches for answers to one family's secrets, she must protect her own. Can she keep her bosses in the dark about her criminal brother? Or is something going to have to give?
O'Brien, Sean.
Afterlife ($35)
Martin and Alex meet at university and - although Martin can never quite work out wh
y - become friends. When they finish their undergraduate studies, and with the summer ahead of them before they have to think about the future, they and their respective girlfriends - Susie and Jane - rent a house in the middle of nowhere. While Jane writes and Susie finds a job at the local art college, the two boys spend their days doing little other than sleeping, drinking, smoking and trying to keep cool in scorching temperatures. As the heat builds, however so does the tension between the four; then, when a glamorous, hedonistic American student arrives in their midst, events and emotions escalate still further. A novel about power, rivalry, jealousy and - in the end - murder, "Afterlife" is a gripping exploration of how some outcomes are decided long before we're even aware of the options.
Riches, Anthony.
Empire, Wounds of Honour ($32)Marcus Valerius Aquila has scarcely landed in Britannia when he has to run for his life - condemned to dishonorable death by power-crazed Emperor Commodus. The plan is to take a new name, serve in an obscure regiment on Hadrian's Wall and lie low until he can hope for justice. Then a rebel army sweeps down from the wastes north of the Wall, and Marcus has to prove he's hard enough to lead a century in the front line of a brutal, violent war.
Tyler, LC.
Ten Little Herrings ($39)
When obscure crime writer Ethelred Tressider vanishes, his dogged literary agent, Elsie Thirkettle, is soon on his trail. Finding him (in a ramshackle hotel in the French Loire) pro
ves surprisingly easy. Bringing him home proves more difficult than expected - but (as Elsie observes) who would have predicted that, in a hotel full of stamp collectors, the guests would suddenly start murdering each other? One guest is found fatally stabbed, apparently the victim of an intruder. But when a rich Russian oligarch also dies, in a hotel now swarming with policemen, suspicion falls on the remaining guests. Elsie is torn between her natural desire to interfere in the police investigation and her urgent need to escape to the town's chocolaterie. Ethelred, meanwhile, seems to know more about the killings than he is letting on. Finally the time comes when Elsie must assemble the various suspects in the Dining Room, and reveal the truth.
"Ten Little Herrings" is a brilliantly anarchic take on the classic "Country House Mystery", and an uproarious sequel to the first Elsie and Ethelred mystery, "The Herring Seller's Apprentice".
